


you are all i can't replace

by 152glasslippers



Series: you know that you got me [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-space arc, Pre-Relationship, Reunion Fic, Robbie comforts Daisy, Season 5 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 02:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13626858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/152glasslippers/pseuds/152glasslippers
Summary: Distantly, her brain registered the hollow sound of footsteps on concrete. They got louder, closer. Stopped. A quiet hum as the ramp to the quinjet lowered. More footsteps. Another hum as the ramp closed again.She didn’t look up to see who it was. She already knew.Post-space arc. Days after reuniting with Robbie, Coulson’s deal with the Rider comes to light (although I’m admittedly too concerned with FEELS to ever disclose what that deal is…) After the big reveal, Robbie finds Daisy where she’s hiding.





	you are all i can't replace

**Author's Note:**

> Give me quakerider comforting each other or give me death! (Joke’s on me. Quakerider!comfort is likely to cause my death.)  
> Part 3 of 3. I definitely recommend reading part 1, as I reference it here.

She fell apart later, in private. After the first round of shock wore off, after everyone got to work, after the last of Coulson and May’s screaming match echoed through the halls. She walked out of the base, into the hangar, and onto the lone quinjet they’d managed to recover. As far away from everyone as she could get.

She didn’t want them to hear her.

It was the kind of crying that started small, quiet and trembling, and grew, until it was so loud, it didn’t even feel connected to her anymore. The kind that took her off her feet, pressed her up against a wall, drew her knees into her chest. That tore her into pieces she wasn’t sure she’d be able to put together again.

It was the kind of crying that scared her. Because it never seemed to end. Because underneath all that grief, there was rage.

She cried until she hurt. Until her aching brain pushed against her eardrums and she could actually feel the swelling around her eyes. Until she didn’t even feel like a person anymore, just an empty shell, a rag doll tossed on the ground. She stared at nothing, her arms dead weight in her lap, her legs sprawled out in front of her, the wall behind her the only thing propping her up.

She kept a tally in her head. Trip had died trying to save her. Her mother was a psychopath. Her father was only sane when he had no memory of her. Lincoln had died to pay for her mistakes.

She couldn’t lose Coulson, too.

She had lied, in the Framework. He wasn’t the closest thing she had to family. He _was_ her family.

She wasn’t angry with him. She couldn’t be. To save them all, to stop AIDA? It was a deal she would have made in a heartbeat. She was angry that they were _here_ again, one of them forced to choose between risking their own life, or everyone else’s. And none of them ever hesitated, never even considered it to _be_ a choice.

Distantly, her brain registered the hollow sound of footsteps on concrete. They got louder, closer. Stopped. A quiet hum as the ramp to the quinjet lowered. More footsteps. Another hum as the ramp closed again.

She didn’t look up to see who it was. She already knew.

His legs came into view first, dark jeans, black and white sneakers.

_Speaking of sacrificing yourself_.

Robbie crossed the space in front of her and sat down next to her on her far side, probably to leave her a clear path to the exit, if she wanted it.

She didn’t.

He sat closer to her than she thought he would, his arm pressed against hers, shoulder to elbow. He stretched his legs out in front of him, his hands resting on his thighs. He wasn’t wearing his gloves.

He’d given them to Coulson.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice sank into the silence around them, heavy with feeling, dragged down by the weight of how much she knew he was sorry for.

Two words, and it was enough to start the tears again, welling up along her lower lashes, threatening to spill over. She didn’t know if he was looking at her, but she shook her head. None of this was his fault.

“Coulson wanted to be the one to tell you.”

Daisy squeezed her eyes shut, clenched her teeth against another wave of tears. Her mind flashed back to the day she’d found Robbie again, their conversation in Canelo’s office. The look in his eyes she couldn’t place. The concern she didn’t understand. The words she hadn’t recognized for what they really were—

_You know the Rider doesn’t help unless he gets something out of it._

A warning.

He’d been trying to prepare her for what he knew was coming. He’d wanted to tell her.

She opened her eyes. The tears were a steady stream now she didn’t bother wiping away. Just let them slide down her cheeks, her neck, soaking into the ends of her hair, catching on her collar, disappearing under her shirt. She barely felt them.

She found herself staring at Robbie’s hands. They were less imposing without his gloves, but still strong. Muscular and worn, which made sense—he was a mechanic first. His skin looked textured, but not rough. Like if she held his hand, it would still feel soft.

Robbie didn’t say anything else, didn’t seem to have anything else to say. He was just…there. They settled into the quiet.

This was how it had always been between them, from the beginning. She went searching for an answer, and she found him. She turned a corner, and he was there. She looked at him, and he was already looking at her.

Daisy didn’t believe in fate—she’d devoted too much of her life trying to avert disastrous outcomes to believe in fate—but there was something about the way her life was intertwined with Robbie’s and Robbie’s life intertwined with hers. Inevitable. Unavoidable. Undeniable. Like something was working out exactly the way it was supposed to.

Like they were connected by a string, and any time the universe pulled one of them, the other was tugged in the same direction.

She knew what doubt felt like, and she knew what _wrong_ felt like. She’d doubted her role in Shield; she’d doubted her place on the team. Herself, her powers. The future. She’d doubted that Robbie would ever come back, but she’d never doubted _this_ , whatever it was between them.

For the first time, she felt so selfishly grateful that Robbie was the one carrying the Rider. If the Rider had to come calling for Coulson, she wouldn’t have wanted to face it without him.

There wasn’t anything she would rather face without him.

She’d felt it in the future, but she knew it now, and that thought—maybe even more than the hundreds of ways Coulson’s deal could go horribly wrong—terrified her.

They’d said goodbye too many times for Daisy to think they’d never be separated again.

It would only hurt more every time.

She reached out and grabbed Robbie’s hand, desperate to make that invisible string real, to anchor herself to him. If she startled him, he didn’t show it, his fingers instantly tightening around hers. His skin was warm, and something in her heart calmed at the heat. She still hadn’t looked at him, but she didn’t need to.

She didn’t know what was coming, how long he could stay, if they could keep each other. She couldn’t even be sure he was looking at the future and thinking what she was thinking, wishing for the same things.

She brought their hands into her lap, folded her other hand around them.

He was here now, and that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
